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WildStar allows buying subscription time with in-game gold

Carbine's WildStar is an interesting one, seeming not to particularly innovate but refining and bringing together lessons learned from the past decade of MMORPGs. Publisher NCsoft today revealed it'll charge monthly subscription fees, but with a twist picked up from EVE Online: players can buy time cards with in-game gold.

Carbine's WildStar is an interesting one, seeming not to particularly innovate but refining and bringing together lessons learned from the past decade of MMORPGs. Publisher NCsoft today revealed it'll charge monthly subscription fees, but with a twist picked up from EVE Online: players can buy time cards with in-game gold.

As with all these subscription-y things, it'll come with 30 days of game time in the box. From there, you can get extra time by paying for a monthly subscription, or by buying a single 'C.R.E.D.D.' 30-day time card for real money from Wildstar's website. And it's these C.R.E.D.D.s that people can then sell in-game for virtual cash.

"So for those of you who don't want to pay a subscription fee: you can use your first month of gameplay to earn gold while playing WildStar. When the next month comes around, instead of paying the monthly subscription fee, you can use gold earned in-game to purchase C.R.E.D.D. from other players," executive producer Jeremy Gaffney said in the announcement.

This does rely on people buying cards with real cash to sell for make-believe money, but as the sellers get to name the price, the market should settle on an amount worthwhile for both sides.

Gaffney added, "We see this as a safe and secure way for players who want to buy gold to have a way of getting some in-game cash without funding gold farming outfits and all the hacking and scamming that can entail." Everybody wins!